Just the 9 of us // VIDEO

PANAMA CITY BEACH — The nine-member Kennedy family calls themselves the “K-9 Crew.”

VALERIE GARMAN | The News Herald

PANAMA CITY BEACH — The nine-member Kennedy family calls themselves the “K-9 Crew.”

But Joe and Kim Kennedy’s Panama City Beach household wasn’t always that big; it grew to nine overnight when they fostered and subsequently adopted a group of seven siblings two years ago.

“We’re blessed,” Joe Kennedy said Monday. “It just worked.”

The Kennedy kids — Milka, 12, Christina, 10, Lupe, 8, Diego, 7, Jordan, 5, Jake, 4 and Joey, 2 — first came to live with Joe and Kim as foster children in October 2011, when Joey was just 3 days old, and the group officially became Kennedys in July 2012.

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A lot has changed in those last two years, Joe Kennedy said, but it’s been nothing less than an adventure.

The couple traded in their Mustang for a nine-passenger Suburban and converted the 1,100-square-foot upstairs “man’s room” into three bedrooms and two full bathrooms for the kids.

Kim Kennedy also quit her job to become a full-time mom.

“To me, the best part is watching the changes they go through,” she said. “If other people are even thinking about adoption, there’s so much good that can come out of it.”

Although things were a bit rocky at first, she said all the children have responded positively to the adoption and are glad to have been able to stick together.

“It’s never a dull moment,” she said. “And you can never get everything done.”

Felicia Cook, director of development for the local chapter of Children’s Home Society (CHS) of Florida, said keeping siblings together is an agency priority.

“The Kennedys are a special family who have been able to keep those children together,” she said.

Challenges

For the Kennedys, the most difficult part was getting to know each child’s personality, especially the older ones, whose lives had been defined by the revolving doors of foster care.

Since the first of the year, CHS has serviced more than 2,000 children, a majority through foster care. Cook said that while the purpose of the foster system is to reunify families, sometimes it can’t be done.

Out of Florida’s 67 counties, Bay County has the second highest number of children in state care per capita.

“We need more foster care homes,” Cook said. “Unfortunately, we do have a lot of children staying outside the county because we don’t have the resources here.”

Milka, the oldest Kennedy child, said she was happy to finally “plant” somewhere.

Once struggling with academics, Milka is now on the A/B honor roll at Surfside Middle School and is taking accelerated courses in science and math. Christina, a fourth-grader at Patronis Elementary, said she loves being able to do things as a family and shared photos of trips to Disney World and Christmas crafts they made together.

“We get to work together and decorate stuff,” Christina said, motioning to the family Christmas tree. “That, we did all together.”